The Elasticity of Demand in Open Access and Conventional Journal Publishing Markets

Recent data show that the demand of both individual scholars and university libraries for the services that journal publishers offer is increasingly elastic.

A Blog Article by Pablo Markin.

In recent months, growing attention has been paid to the article processing charges (APCs) of academic journals. Especially with the advent of open access journal and initiatives, the interaction of these developments with demand in different sectors of the publishing market remains, however, under-analyzed. On the one hand, the presence of open access publishing options drives the costs of academic publications up for individual scholars, which can make them shop around for the most cost-effective publication solution they can find on the academic market, provided that journal-level academic standards are met.

Likewise, in the market for scientific journal subscriptions, university libraries are increasingly found to exhibit elastic demand for deals that publishing houses offer them, as North American university libraries are reportedly opting for the renegotiation of their journal access agreements in growing numbers in recent years. This represents a significant departure from the situation of previously inflexible demand for journal subscription bundles that publishers offer. This also amounts to a marked shift in the academic journal publishing market with portentous consequences for the financial viability of extant business models, whether they are based on open access or paywalls, such as significantly falling net revenues, as financial reports of PLOS demonstrate in recent years.

Thus, funding bodies as well as other market players may need not only pay special attention to the long-term sustainability of the models they apply, but also to the growing elasticity of demand in the academic journal access and publication markets.

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